LESSON FOR THE JUNIOR CLASSES
Lesson 8 January 23, 2021
Key verse
“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word”.
John 17: 20
INTRODUCTION AND STUDY
We know that you know that prayer is a very powerful thing. You are therefore encouraged by your parents and your family to make sure that you pray every day telling God honestly what is on your mind and asking Him to grant you your requests for things that are really very important to you.
Jesus doesn’t just wait for you to pray to God the Father and ask Him to be with you and help you. He stands right beside you as well as beside the Father praying for you.
That is why Jesus is called an intercessor. He is now seated at the right hand of the Father which is a place of authority and power. He speaks to the Father about you and what is best for you. So when Jesus speaks to the Father about you it is not just a general or ordinary prayer but it is what He called an intercessory prayer.
That is a pretty long word but it is very important. For in fact intercessory prayer means Jesus is intervening on your behalf making sure that there would be no hostility between you and God the Father. God the Father has Jesus standing beside Him and He is listening to Jesus making a petition on your behalf because you’re in need of mercy and grace from Him. God The Father will always do what Jesus asks and so you can rest assured the Father will always love and keep you, correcting you when you do what is not right.
Jesus speaks to God the Father often and He speaks about everything, thanking God the Father for everything.
Jesus loved His Father and He also loved His disciples. He taught them a great deal about His Father and He made them understand that God the Father loved them too. As a matter of fact Jesus told His disciples that He was so close to the Father that He was “in” the Father and the Father was “in” Him. The disciples belonged to the Father and since the disciples were loved by God the Father as well as by Jesus they were to consider themselves as being “in” the Father as well as being “in” Jesus.
That is so close to God that some of us have a hard time believing how really blessed we are. We are really special to God. You better believe that. So live in the right way to please God.
This was a magnificent place to be in for they could count on the Father doing everything that they needed to be done for them. They could call on the Father any time they wanted. They really were belonging to the Father and so the Father had their best interests at heart.
Before Jesus went to the garden of Gethsemane and was crucified on the Cross Jesus prayed for His disciples and asked the Father to be with His disciples for Jesus knew that hard times would be ahead of them and these hard times would never stop. The people in the world who were ruined by Satan and who he then ruled did not want the best for human beings. Satan made the world hate Jesus as well as the disciples and so it was very necessary for God the Father to protect, keep, and guard them.
Jesus asked the Father to make sure that the disciples were one and lived in unity, looking after each other and loving each other. When the world saw this they would realize that God was doing a special were in the disciples and they would be led to consider that God would do the same for them.
This was Jesus’ longest prayer and so we know that it was very important.
Whatever Jesus was asking the Father for is something that we should think about very carefully. The reason is that Jesus not only prayed for the disciples that were sitting in front of Him at supper, but He also prayed for those that would believe in Him through the word and the teachings that the disciples would bring to them. The disciples had the responsibility of carrying on Jesus’ mission to teach the world about God the Father and so when people heard this teaching and believed in Jesus Christ they would be blessed.
This was very important work and so Jesus prayed and interceded with God the Father so that He would keep the disciples and protect them while they taught the world.
In order that the disciples could teach the world about God they had to be sanctified or set apart for a special purpose. This means that the disciples would be consecrated or established by the Father to carry out the mission of Jesus. Jesus had taught the disciples the truth about God the Father, and they would be able to carry this truth to the rest of the world.
Remember therefore that God the Father and Jesus has given you a mission to do. You are to carry on the mission that Jesus had when He came to earth.
In order to carry out this mission you have to live in unity with the brethren. All the brethren believe that Jesus Christ was the Saviour of the world and that He died on the Cross to save sinners, and that the Holy Spirit lived in them and would guide them in all truth and tell them how they are to behave.
So Jesus wants you to be good to the other brethren and all those that believe in Him. All that believe in Jesus have to learn how to work together to save other people. We have to realize that God loves all those that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and all those people have been taken by God the Father into the body of Christ.
So let us do the work that God has consecrated us to do and realize that we are part of the family of God. We belong to God and so we can live without any fear. We are assured of the love of God the Father and the love of Jesus Christ His Son. Nobody can separate us from them. The people of the world and Satan their ruler cannot separate us from God.
Jesus loves us so much that He prayed that all those that believe in Him would one day come and be with Him forever. He was confident that that would happen. So we know that we have a great future to look forward to for Jesus wants to be with us and since He has all power He will make sure that we are going to be with Him forever. So let us be faithful and our reward will be great.